In December, the 11 men from 3rd generation Y squad traveled to Bokspits, Botswana to help put a roof on a church in the middle of the Kalahari Desert. We were looking forward to hard work, good time with the other men, and the first real challenge for us as far as the elements were concerned.
As always, things didn’t go as expected. It was, however, completely fantastic.
First, small story time. We fully expected our bus driver to take us from South Africa to
our ministry site in Botswana. We purchased 11 days worth of food (because Bokspits’s stores were reportedly too small for us to use reliably), loaded it up in to the trailer, and went to the border. Our driver pulls over, turns around and asks, “So, who’s going to pick you up?”
Ummmmmm. You? Stunned silence. Oh no. We knew that our ministry site wasn’t THAT far in to Botswana, but we were not looking forward to carrying two packs, nearly 600 liters of water, and 11 days worth of food over the border and a few miles down the road…
Our team leader made a few calls and arranged one of the locals to come and pick us up. Oh thank God. It was a good near-disaster (or near-difficult) moment for us to laugh at. Small story time over.
We pulled into the construction site, and we were greeted with fence-to-fence sand, two
trees, a hut in which to store food, a nice bathroom facility, and a one-room church. I won’t lie. My initial reaction was something akin to, “That’s it?” I shouldn’t have been surprised though, seeing how Bokspits’s population comes in somewhere around 500.
Each day that we worked posed a pretty serious challenge…
The heat was manageable. The sunlight was manageable. The lack of a refrigerator was
manageable. The lack of a room to sleep in was manageable. All of it was tough, but good.
The challenge was that there wasn’t enough work for 11 men.
Our work included things like painting the rafters and beams, deconstructing the roof with
crowbars and hammers, welding, and handing sheets up to the construction team for placement. At any given point in time, there was either enough work for 4 men, or only 4 hours of work for 11 men.
Simply said, we had a lot of free time on our hands. So what do you do when you have lots of free time? Not sure. That’s a decision we all have to make, eh?
We did not have access to internet, TV, or taxis. So we were confined to this space. For the first few days we were overwhelmed by the lack of anything to do, and it was exceedingly frustrating. I believe that God delivered a message to several of the guys at once to give us guidance, but it came to me in the form of this verse:
Ecclesiastes 8:5 “…Those who are wise will find a time and a way to do what is right.”
A lot of that verse speaks to us making time in our schedules to choose God and choose
responsibility over our own selfish desires, but what better time to implement such a verse
than on days where we physically could not work because it was too hot? Sure thing, there
were days where we watched movies saved on our laptops or read fun books or wrestled or played soccer, but I think we also chose God over our selfishness on many occasions. Every morning that I woke up, it was guaranteed that there were already guys awake reading scripture. During our lunch siestas we would seek quiet time with the Lord and pray. Many of us took breaks and journaled to process our thoughts and send them to the Lord. We also took time to read a book and give each other devotional lessons. Several of us took the time to exercise and improve our physical health as well as our spiritual health.
Overall, it was a great and beautiful time. The challenge is far from over, however. Now,
we’re back with the rest of our squad in a busy environment and we’re faced with a
more difficult challenge.
Are we going to wake up and read scripture when we were up late talking to friends? Are we going to exercise when we’re tired and a friend invites us to go to breakfast? Are we going to say no to watching a movie in the evening when our souls are roaring with difficulty and pain and we just need to get away and pray?
In 7 months or so, we’ll be faced with tremendously difficult decisions. When we’re back on our couches in the AC and we’re comfortable with full access to internet, cable, and all of the wonderful things that the U.S. provides us with, will we continue to make the right
choices?
Just as a great relationship with another human being requires many deliberate, proper, and wise choices, our relationship with God requires the same. Not only that, our physical,
emotional, and spiritual health is dependent on making healthy decisions. This may sound
like a simple and obvious statement from some self-help book, but more often than not I opt for “fun” things like hours of TV and video games and I find myself in a place of crippled emptiness.
So God took me to a place of emptiness and showed me how to act in emptiness. God blessed me in the Kalahari desert. I encourage you to consider Ecclesiastes 8:5.
Thanks, and God bless.
